Volume 17 , Issue 19

George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb

Who was George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb, who was also known as the Slaughter Kid, a member of the outlaw band known as the Doolin/Dalton gang? Bitte Creek Newcomb was described as a handsome, devil-may-care cowboy with an eye for a pretty girl, the son of a respected family which lived near Fort Scott, Kansas.

Bitter Creek worked for noted Cattleman C. C. Slaughter and was known for a time as the Slaughter Kid. The name Bitter Creek is from an old cowboy song he liked to sing: "I'm a wild wolf from Bitter Creek and its my night to howl."

Some say Bitter Creek's mistress was known as "the Rose of Cimarron" and may have been Rose Dunn. In Richard Patterson's "historical atlas of the Outlaw West" it was said Bitter Creek was shot to death among with Charlie Pierce at the Dunn ranch, Norman, Oklahoma on 2 May 1895 (or May 1st).

There are some accounts that have Bitter Creek's father James Newcomb claiming the body and during Bitter Creek on the family farm near Nine Mile flats, southwest of Norman, Cleveland county, Oklahoma, on the north bank of the Canadian river.

There had been reports of a George W. Newcomb living in Perry, Oklahoma, who died the same year and many believe he was Bitter Creek Newcomb.

Cowboy Flats (today called Pleasant Valley) was a vast spread of rangeland that lay embraced in the great bend of the Cimarron River between Guthrie and Coyle. In the Run of '89 the name of that rangeland was changed to Pleasant Valley.

The cowhands who rode Cowboy Flat during the years it was open included Bill Doolin, Bill Dalton, Bitter Creek Newcomb (the Slaughter Kid), Dick Broadwell, Little Dick West, Zip Wyatt, and Bill Powers. Each of these men turned outlaw and, in time, was shot to death. Five of them "soonered" a claim in the Cowboy Flat range country in 1889. Not one of them farmed his claim. They relinquished their claims for nothing, for a few, or many, dollars, and rode off down the owlhoot trail to die.

The Cowboy Flats (today Pleasant Valley), supposed Dalton gang hideout (SW 1/4 34-18-1W); Dick West (NE 1/4 33-18-1W); Zip Wyatt (SE 1/4 32-18-1W); William Power (SE 1/4 33-18-1W); Dick Broadwell (SW 1/4 33-18-1W); Alfred G. D. Newcomb (NW 1/4 34-18-1W).

It was said that Dick Broadwell sold his relinquishment for $1,200 and hid himself off to Dallas with a pretty neighbor widow who had just sold her claim too. In Dallas, Dick kept enough money to buy a new suit to get married in, and gave the pretty widow all the rest with instructions to go buy the marriage license, then open a joint bank account for them. He never saw her again.

Who Was "Bitter Creek" Newcomb and which family did he belong?
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